On an unseasonably cold afternoon in early May, Paul Rasgorshek is making the rounds of his farm, some 3,000 acres perched in the lava-rimmed country on the edge of the Snake River. Wet clouds scud out of the Owyhee Mountains, and from behind the wheel of his pickup, Rasgorshek juggles the two-way radio and the Nextel cell phone that he uses to coordinate the farm’s 17 employees. Then he eases the truck to a stop to take a close look at the future of farming.
A new field of alfalfa plants pokes up green and lush from the rough ground, surrounded by what Rasgorshek, with the slightest trace of a savoring grin, calls “the dead carcasses" of freshly killed weeds. Farmers here can typically get about three good years out of their alfalfa fields before weeds begin taking over. Then, they often use an herbicide called Roundup to — in a euphemism that makes them sound like botanical mafiosi — “take out" the alfalfa and clear the field for another crop.
Roundup is a potent plant killer, but the alfalfa in Rasgorshek’s field has been genetically engineered to be immune to the herbicide. That feat of agricultural alchemy allows farmers to spray their fields without damaging the crop itself. “It’s just amazing that you can spray something over the top of the alfalfa, and it doesn’t kill it," Rasgorshek says.
Behind this revolution in farming is Monsanto, the storied, St. Louis-based chemical company. Monsanto not only manufactures Roundup, but also genetically engineered the Roundup-resistant gene into the alfalfa that Rasgorshek began growing three years ago. Today, “Roundup Ready" alfalfa is planted on some 220,000 acres nationwide, and Rasgorshek is an unapologetic genetic-engineering loyalist. “In today’s agriculture, if you just sit back, you’re not gonna survive," he says. “If you don’t change with the times, you’re gonna go down."
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